Joint maritime patrol, anti-submarine warfare drills…: 11 key things in India-Australia defence pact

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to Australia was marked by the signing of key agreements and fruitful discussions on ways to boost bilateral defence cooperation. Singh met his Australian counterpart Richard Marles and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during his historic visit to the country, the first in 12 years for an Indian defence minister.

“I highlighted the rapid growth of India’s defense industry and India’s growing stature as a credible source of high-quality defense tech globally. We discussed potential for deeper defense industry partnerships between India and Australia,” Singh said earlier today.

Similarly, Marles said, “It’s the first time in 12 years that an Indian Defence Minister has visited Australia, and it was fantastic to elevate our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. As top tier security partners we’ve agreed to boost dialogue, cooperation, and complexity in joint and multilateral exercises across the services.”

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Here are 11 key takeaways from the meeting:

• Mutual Submarine Rescue Support and Cooperation Agreement signed

• Progress toward operationalising the Air-to-Air Refuelling Agreement (2024)

• Launch of Joint Staff Talks to coordinate joint operations and exercises across all domains

• Indian officers to train at the Australian Defence College (2026) and the First-ever Indian position at the Australian Defence Force Academy (2027)

• Agreement to collaborate on contemporary defence tech, UAS, counter-UAS, integrated air & missile defence, secure comms, etc.

• India offers to conduct Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) for Australian Navy ships in Indian shipyards

• Launch of a Joint Maritime Security Collaboration Roadmap

• Continued joint maritime patrols and anti-submarine warfare activities in the Indian Ocean

• Agreement to deploy maritime aircraft from each other’s territories

• Both sides reaffirmed Quad cooperation and plan to hold second Quad maritime domain awareness activity on the sidelines of Exercise Malabar (Nov 2025)

• Deputy PM Richard Marles to visit India in 2026 for the next Annual Defence Ministers’ Dialogue